1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to printing and publishing. More particularly, it is concerned with a high speed, high production database publishing system preferably having a plurality of microprocessors for flowing manuscript material such as text and graphics into predefined entities making up the structure of a publication according to predetermined attributes associated with each entity, and for imaging manuscript material in a sequence of processing stages with each stage including a plurality of processing operations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Traditionally, printers and publishers responsible for high volumes of original type set work have many highly qualified data entry personnel, each operating behind an expensive work station for entering original manuscript data into a mainframe computer typography system. At the time of entry, the original manuscript data is also normally preceded and/or succeeded with certain typesetting codes that "tag" the associated text for handling in a special way.
In the prior art, a number of typography control language systems have evolved such as SGML, CALS, TEX and troff which require numerous data entry personnel knowledgeable of the individual typography language codes for modifying and encoding different portions of the text until ready for printing or phototypesetting. Additionally, specialized personnel must be further proficient in initially setting up and maintaining the so-called rule table or "document type definition" (DTD) for all the different tagging codes used in each typography language.
In another prior art technique, typists or personal computer operators directly compose camera-ready copy from which printing plates can be produced. This process is also expensive, is slow because each page must also be totally composed individually one at a time including page position, margins, fonts, emphasis such as bold and italic, and a myriad of other details, and all without errors.
As is appreciated by those skilled in the art, these prior art systems result in high labor costs and high production costs because of the relatively slow throughput. Accordingly, the prior art points out the need for a system which eliminates the need for large numbers of highly skilled data entry personnel, and which increases production.